Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Section 1 deals with when the Act will come into operation and the Title of the Act, which deems it a local property tax. That is an offence to what is contained in the legislation because it is not a local property tax. Property is far more than a family home. If the Government really wanted to introduce an assets tax or property tax, it would have proposed something similar to what I proposed in amendment No. 1.

In their election manifestos, every Deputy from Fine Gael and the Labour Party, including the Minister for Finance, told the electorate they were opposed to an annual recurring residential property tax. The Bill is cited as the Finance (Local Property Tax). This tax is recurring and is in complete breach of the Government's mandate. This is another broken promise in relation to that mandate.

This will be a tax on debt. This is not a tax on property. It is a tax on people's mortgage liabilities and on negative equity. People paid thousands, if not tens of thousands, of euro in stamp duty. No party has a mandate to bring forward the type of taxation measure that is before us today. The only party that went to the electorate with a proposal to introduce a recurring property tax was Fianna Fáil. That was different in nature, being a site value tax. This tax has no mandate from the public and should not be brought before us today.

It is embarrassing for the Minister, given the commitments he gave when he walked the highways and byways telling people there would not be an annual recurring residential property tax. It is an offence to pretend this is a property tax that, somehow, widens the tax base. The Government is dipping its hands into the pockets of struggling home owners. We know from last week's report that one in four home owners has a difficulty paying their mortgage and is in mortgage distress. These are the people into whose pockets the Government intends to dip its hand next July and who will be asked to pay for a home on which they cannot even pay the mortgage to keep a roof over their heads.

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